Expectation for Evenepoel, hope for Bernal at the Vuelta a San Juan – preview

In 2020, when Remco Evenepoel won the last, pre-pandemic edition of the Vuelta a San Juan, he was presented with an Argentina football jersey bearing the number 10 and was feted in the local newspapers as the 'Messi of cycling.' At just 20 years of age, there seemed to be no obvious limit on what the Belgian could achieve.

Three years on, that remains the case. Hyperbole tends to age about as well as milk, but Evenepoel has lived up to the plaudits heaped upon him in January 2020. Like Lionel Messi, he returns to Argentina as a world champion, although, unlike his footballing counterpart, he has yet to build the career-long body of work necessary to see him vie with a revered compatriot for the title of his sport's 'GOAT'.

For the time being, Evenepoel is still competing with his contemporaries rather than grappling overtly with history, even if his every pedal stroke is being tacitly measured against Eddy Merckx, just as Diego Maradona was always Messi's yardstick.

The Giro d'Italia is the centrepiece of Evenepoel's 2023 season and the Vuelta a San Juan is a preliminary step on the way, but – like Merckx – he is expected to put on a show every time he pins on a number. The problem of routinely producing miracles, as Messi can testify, is that it only heightens the demand for more.

Evenepoel and his Soudal-QuickStep team arrived in Argentina more than ten days ahead of the Vuelta a San Juan, with the Belgian availing of the chance to train in the searing heat as well as the rare opportunity to spend some time in relative anonymity. The lone public obligation on the schedule was one that appealed to the former footballer, namely an evening as the guest of honour at a Boca Juniors game.

The hospitality at the Vuelta a San Juan did not extend, mind, to designing a route expressly for the world champion. Three years ago, Evenepoel forged his overall victory in the individual time trial to Punta Negra, where he beat Filippo Ganna – and a brewing electrical storm – to claim stage honours and the leader's jersey. This time out, there is no time trial on the agenda, which means that Evenepoel will be compelled to go on the offensive if he is to defend his crown.

The familiar 2,624m-high summit finish at Alto Colorado on stage 5 looks set to decide the race, although the long and rugged run to Barreal on stage 4 should provide an initial GC shake-up. The rolling terrain may well give Evenepoel an opportunity to run through the scales early in the year, just as he did on his first race day of 2022 at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana.

The stage will also be an early test for the Vuelta a San Juan's other star attraction, Ineos Grenadiers leader Egan Bernal. January 24, the day of the third stage at the Autodrómo de Villicum, marks the one-year anniversary of the training crash that put his life, never mind his career, at risk.

Considering the severity of his injuries, he made an astonishing recovery to return at the Deutschland Tour, though he was, for obvious reasons, well short of his best during his competitive appearances at the tail end of last season.

It remains to be seen whether Bernal can eventually regain the vim that carried him to victory at the 2019 Tour de France and 2021 Giro d'Italia – and, indeed, whether that level will now suffice to compete with Evenepoel, Tadej Pogačar et al on the grandest of stages. The Tour is Bernal's overriding objective in 2023 and the Vuelta a San Juan the first, tentative, step on his journey there.

"I'm surprised and very happy about how much I've managed to do," Bernal told AS this week. "Not even a year has gone past and I'm now thinking about the Tour de France, and not just finish or take part, but to try to go for the overall and do that as well as possible."

Bernal last raced against Evenepoel at the 2021 Giro, when the Belgian was the rider recovering from serious injury. Evenepoel's Grand Tour debut was also his first race since breaking his pelvis at Il Lombardia the previous year. For 10 days, he gamely battled with Bernal before punching himself out in the second week, but then the road to recovery is usually punctuated by such setbacks.

Next week in Argentina, all the expectation lies with Evenepoel. Bernal will instead be nourished by hope, but that's already plenty after the year he has just had.

Vuelta a San Juan 2023 favourites

Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) and Oscar Sevilla (Medellín-EPM), the two men who flanked Evenepoel on the podium in San Juan three years ago, both return to the race in 2023, this time surrounded by notably deeper teams.

Ganna's assured climbing in Argentina three years ago prefigured a breakout 2020 campaign, when he landed four stage wins – including a mountainous triumph in Calabria – at the Giro.

His often-trying 2022 was burnished by his track exploits in October, taking both the World Hour Record and the individual pursuit world record, and he will look to begin the new season on a positive note here alongside Bernal. Ineos's GC challenge might ultimately be carried, mind, by Daniel Martínez, always a reliable performer in week-long stage races.

At 46, Sevilla is twice Evenepoel's age, but he will again endeavour to be his equal when the road climbs in San Juan. The Spaniard built a second career and a new life in Colombia after he was effectively banished from European racing following Operacion Puerto, and his Medellín-EMF squad is now providing a home for another man in a drearily familiar situation.

Miguel Angel López's links to Dr Marcos Maynar, currently the subject of a drug trafficking inquiry in Spain, meant that Astana Qazaqstan opted to cut their ties with him altogether in December, having already (briefly) suspended him ahead of his fourth-place finish at last year's Vuelta.

There were, unsurprisingly, no other takers in the WorldTour and López has dropped to Continental level for 2023. Already a winner on home roads in Villeta last week, he will – despite his protestations – surely be to the fore on the Alto Colorado here.

Other climbers to watch across the week include Sergio Higuita (Bora-Hansgrohe), Stevie Williams (Israel Premier Tech) and Einer Rubio (Movistar), while the Vuelta a San Juan – like the lamented Tour de San Luis – always tends to produce unexpected contenders from the Argentinian Continental circuit.

Juan Pablo Dotti was the best-placed home challenger in 2023 and he will again feature here. Elsewhere, veteran Spanish climber Delio Fernández heads up the Portuguese team APHotels & Resorts-Tavira.

The route, meanwhile, offers ample opportunities for the sprinters, and the start list boasts a perhaps unexpectedly strong line-up of sprint stars to match, most notably Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-QuickStep).

Peter Sagan (TotalEnergies), who will travel onwards to Colombia after the race to prepare for the Classics, Elia Viviani (Ineos Grenadiers), and past stage winners Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Israel-Premier Tech) will also be on the start line.

So too will Fernando Gaviria, who three years ago was almost untouchable in the sprints in San Juan. With eight stage wins at the race, the Colombian is far and away the record holder, but he has endured a wretched period since his last, beginning with his long stint in COVID-19 isolation at the subsequent UAE Tour.

He will hope to reboot his career with his move to Movistar, and his record on Argentinian roads gives him ample reason to believe. His old friend and lead-out man Max Richeze – who has three stages to his name – is part of the Argentinian national squad, as he prepares to bring the curtain down on his career at the end of the month.

Other riders to watch on the start list include Trek-Segafredo pairing Quinn Simmons and Antwan Tolhoek, Astana's Andrey Zeits, and Team DSM's cadre of young riders, including Kevin Vermaerke and Marco Brenner.

Vuelta a San Juan 2023 route

The Vuelta a San Juan, once more in the UCI ProSeries, is the highest-ranked race in the Americas, and the terrain, where arid, near-desert meets the foothills of the Andes, offers sufficient variety for a week-long stage race.

One constant, however, will be the searing heat. As ever in these parts at the height of summer, midday temperatures will be over 35°C, and stages are thus sensibly scheduled for late afternoon, with the daily finishes slated for 7:40pm local time (10:30pm CET).

The short opening stage, starting and finishing in San Juan, features a brace of category 3 climbs, but nothing should deny the sprinters their first joust of the race. The terrain is more testing on stage 2, with the road climbing steadily for the first 80km towards the category 1 climb in the Parque Nacional Ischigualasto.

The long descent gives dropped riders a chance to get back on, but the gently climbing finale is far from straightforward. Enterprising riders like Simmons might be tempted onto the offensive.

Stage 3 starts and finishes at the Autódromode  Villicum, and while the terrain is ostensibly for the sprinters, Zdenek Stybar smartly used the final kick before the finish to tear up the anticipated script three years ago.

Stage 4, meanwhile, is one for the GC men, with the long haul up the first-category 2,200m-high Gruta Virgen De Andacollo midway through followed by a punchy finale in Barreal.

After a mid-race rest day, the Vuelta a San Juan resumes with its set-piece mountain stage to Alto Colorado, where Evenepoel produced a dramatic fightback in 2020. Indeed, the final 100km are again almost exclusively uphill, with the third-category Alto de Villicum and second-category climbs of the Baños de Talacasto and Alto de la Crucecita serving as a prelude to the 18.8km haul to the finish.

The Alto Colorado has an average gradient of just 4.4% and maximum slopes of 6.4%, but its altitude – particularly at this point in the season – makes it a stiff examination and the decisive point of the entire race. The final weekend, meanwhile, features flat and fast finales at the Velódromo Vicente Chancay and in San Juan.